ABSTRACT
An out-of-wedlock pregnancy precluded the free choice of a marriage partner, the single most important decision young women, assisted by their family and friends, made. Women derived their identity from their husbands; they assumed his status and reputation; they accepted his authority; and they placed confidence in his ability to provide for them and the inevitable clutch of children that would follow. This would make the choice of a mate stressful enough in this life, but in Puritan Massachusetts, women’s hopes of heaven might be dependent upon their choice of an earthly partner, for Puritan religious ideology linked marriage and grace. Anne Bradstreet made that link explicit in a poem dedicated, “To my Dear and loving Husband,” in which she described marital love as the means of election: “(T)hen while we live, in love lets so persevere, That when we live no more, we may live forever.”8
